Ghana's Finance Minister Says NaBCo and YEA Can't Solve Unemployment: 'They Are Temporary Jobs'

Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has delivered a blunt assessment of Ghana's past approaches to youth unemployment, declaring that temporary employment schemes like NaBCo and the Youth Employment Agency cannot deliver lasting jobs and that the country must restructure its economy to absorb a population of 35 million.

Speaking in an interview on Thursday, November 12, 2026, after presenting the 2027 Budget to Parliament, Dr. Forson argued that the government's new economic policy would focus on modernising the economy rather than cycling young people through short-term programmes.

"You end up creating temporary jobs like NaBCo, which is not a solution, or YEA models. They are temporary jobs," he said .

An Economy Built for 6 Million, Not 35 Million

The minister framed the challenge in structural terms, arguing that Ghana's economy was designed for a far smaller population and cannot support the roughly 35 million people who now live in the country.

"The focus of this new economic policy is to tackle the structure of the Ghanaian economy, to modernise it into a modern economy, to be able to support 35 million people, and not 6 million people," Dr. Forson said .

His comments came ahead of the budget presentation, when he told the National House of Chiefs in Kumasi that Ghana's population had grown by about 16 million over the past 25 years while the economy failed to create enough jobs to absorb young people entering the labour market .

Dr. Forson has consistently criticised the temporary employment model. At the chiefs' meeting, he said young Ghanaians' "future cannot depend on moving from one temporary opportunity to the next" .

The Scale of the Crisis

The numbers underscore the urgency. Young people aged 15 to 35 make up 36.9 percent of Ghana's population, and youth unemployment stands at 21.9 percent—nearly twice the national rate of 12.8 percent, according to Ghana Statistical Service data released for World Population Day 2026 . Nearly 2 million young people, or 19.5 percent of the youth population, are not in education, employment, or training .

Parliamentary disclosures from June 2026 showed youth unemployment for those aged 15 to 24 rose from 32 percent in December 2024 to 32.5 percent by the third quarter of 2025, with Greater Accra reaching 49.3 percent.

The New Economy Alternative

The government's response is the New Economy Programme, a US$10 billion initiative running from 2027 to 2030 with GH¢30 billion allocated for its first year. The programme is structured around eight pillars: macroeconomic stability and affordable finance; commercial agriculture; energy infrastructure; critical minerals value addition; tourism, culture and creative arts; textiles and garments; pharmaceuticals and biomanufacturing; and the technology economy .

Commercial agriculture is the largest single investment at US$3 billion, targeting rice, sugar, poultry, maize and soya, aquaculture, oil palm, vegetables, and cocoa processing. The government aims to create about 125,000 jobs through rice development hubs alone and to prohibit commercial rice imports by 2030 .

The programme targets real GDP growth of approximately 8 percent and aims to bring unemployment below 8 percent by 2030 .

Fiscal Discipline as the Foundation

Dr. Forson maintained that the shift toward structural transformation would require continued fiscal discipline. He said the government inherited persistent inflation and an unresolved economic crisis in 2025 and constrained spending to bring order to public financial management.

"There was a lot of disorder; we brought order to the public financial management system," he said .

He cited currency stabilisation and primary surpluses of 2.5 percent of GDP in 2025 and 1.5 percent in 2026 as evidence of the results, and confirmed the government now intends to reduce the target to 0.5 percent as it pursues the next phase of its agenda .

The Political Question

The minister's critique of NaBCo and YEA carries political weight. NaBCo, launched in 2018 under the previous New Patriotic Party administration, recruited 100,000 graduates on a three-year contract with a GH¢700 monthly stipend. Former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia claimed in 2024 that about 34,000 beneficiaries had transitioned into permanent jobs . The programme was also plagued by unpaid allowances and protests by beneficiaries .

YEA, by contrast, has reported over 100,000 beneficiaries between January 2025 and September 2026, with CEO Malik Basintale stating that at least 60 percent of beneficiaries in security-sector programmes were expected to be absorbed into security agencies after their two-year engagement .

For Dr. Forson, the distinction between temporary stipends and permanent employment is the central economic question of the government's remaining term. Whether the New Economy's eight pillars can deliver the jobs that NaBCo and YEA could not will determine whether his critique proves prescient or merely rhetorical.